Predictive Modeling 101: Turning HR into a Hero of the Business

As an HR leader, when you hear the phrase predictive modeling, what do you think of?

Does it sound like a term that belongs in marketing or finance? Does your skin crawl at the idea of getting into math and statistics?

While it’s much easier to maintain the status quo and keep doing things as they’ve always been done, by doing nothing you’re actually doing both your HR department and your entire organization a huge disservice.

Truth is, predictive modeling is not that scary and could help impact real business results giving you huge visibility. As Talent Analytics CEO Greta Roberts said, “predictive analytics won’t just get HR a seat at the table. HR will run the table.” Does that sound appealing? Great, keep reading, it gets better!

Predictive Modeling 101

First, a quick refresher on what we’re talking about when we say model. This is simply a way of replicating the people that are good at their job in various roles across the company, like sales, customer service or other key areas. A predictive model predicts which candidate or employee will be most successful in a given role and those that will not be as successful.

Predictive analytics has a recursive loop, which means as employees enter and leave the organization, data is fed into the predictive models. They learn and become even more accurate in their predictions. By getting smarter, the business reduces cost of hiring, training and on-boarding new employees.

With less employee attrition and increased performance HR becomes a Hero to the business.

Mike Kennedy is an Analytics Evangelist at Talent Analytics, Corp. He can be reached via Mike@talentanalytics.com and @talentanalytics.

If there's anything we've learned in the last few years, it's that Big Data is going to change the way business gets done. That's true in Finance, it's true in Sales and Marketing and it's true in the Talent world—across both HR and Recruiting. You can't walk 10 yards at a conference in our industry without seeing a vendor or service provider trumpeting the fact that their offering—regardless of the focus—helps you gain an analytical edge.

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